Vital Organs
Summer Recess before 6th year, September 7th.
"Hermione! Get your arse up or so help me, I will not hesitate to pull out the rod!"
Groaning into her pillow, the brunette shifted her body to wake as the light beamed through the windows, beckoning Hermione to wake and start the day. Yet the softness of the vanilla-coloured sheets made her snuggle into the bed for a second more. Ah, soft... one more minute, Daddy.
"Hermione Jean Granger!" her father, rapped on her door, "Your mother and I are nearly ready. What are you doing in there? Your grandparents expect us in time for noontime tea. We're leaving in fifteen minutes!"
Bollocks! Damn it all to hell! Hermione jumped from the bed and cursed her memory for forgetting the importance of today. As their only granddaughter to their only daughter, her grandparents wished to spend an early birthday lunch with her before she left for Hogwarts. However, as much the luncheon was seemingly a part of doting grandparents, Hermione knew it was not. Her grandparents were never outwardly unpleasant towards her and they treated her as one of their own – but there was always a feeling of distance from the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Dalton. As a child, it hurt Hermione deeply to think that her grandparents did not love her. As a maturing young woman and donning the title of the "brightest witch of her age" at Hogwarts, her grandparents were the least of her concerns. Voldemort was alive and in hiding, his whereabouts and intentions unknown to the Order of Phoenix. Sirius is dead and Hermione could not feel evermore guilty over her opinions about him when he was alive. Harry had finally found his family only to have Sirius taken from him before he had a chance to know him.
The surge of pure hate for Voldemort and his twisted, sadistic cult of Deatheaters left Hermione shaking and balling her fists, so hard her nails dug deep into her flesh.
Breathe, Hermione, breathe.
"My, Hermione! Look how you've grown!" exclaimed her grandmother Maria Dalton, as Hermione kissed her cheek and accepted her embrace, "Such a lovely young woman of fifteen years. I feel like time as passed too quickly. Hermione, turn for me please. I must have a look at you."
Although, her mane- ahem, hair was still a voluminous mass of coffee curls that remained unmanageable to this day, Hermione was not lacking in her opinion. A pair of light brown eyes inherited from her father's, shimmered in the summer light and her rather full lips were pinkish in tint. From her legs to her arms, she was a rather healthy size from her constant adventures with Harry and Ron, and her trips to the expansive Hogwarts library. Whether researching for tasks or for classwork, the loads of books that Hermione brought from the Hogwarts library on the 5th floor to the Tower of Gryffindor were truly a workout. Her form was not too lithe, however, as she possessed a sizable chest and rear that was different from her mother's graceful, ballerina form. In fact, Hermione took mostly after her father in looks - with his light brown hair with tints of gray, the same light brown eyes as Hermione that crinkled when he laughed, and the sun-glowed skin they shared. Jean Granger was a pale beauty with sharper facial features that accentuated her blue eyes and lighter brown, close to blonde, hair that came to her shoulders. She had the body of a dancer as she was small of frame and had graceful slight curves. Hermione, dressed in as simple, flowing white dress that caressed her curvaceous figure, figured her form was something inherited from her father's side of the family.
"Grandmama," Hermione smiled laughingly, but her smile dropped at the look on her grandmother's face. Maria Dalton's smile was truly sincere and approving, but disappointment lingered in her eyes as she looked at Hermione. Jean Granger, after embracing her father Michael Dalton, caught the tension in her mother's stare and visibly tensed.
"What is it, Mother?" asked Jean, coming up and putting an arm around her daughter. Tears formed in Ms. Dalton's eyes and her husband came to embrace her. Hermione watched as her grandmother clutched her chest as if in agony. Maria Dalton, Hermione's grandmother and Jean's mother, rarely lost composure – exception being the time when a squirrel family was found in the family Christmas tree and ransacked the house. As such, Hermione and Jean look at each other in alarm.
"I wish she was truly ours," Maria cried, her regretful and despondent in her husband's arms, "I wish she was truly yours, Jean. I look at her and she's so beautiful. I can see a bit of Charles in her, yet I cannot see you. I try, but I know it is impossible."
Maria sobbed brokenheartedly as she stared at her only daughter and Hermione. Hermione, quick of mind, was thoroughly bewildered at her grandmother's strange words. As Hermione looked her mother Jean, she could see her mother's eyes had sharped and her lips had pursed. Hermione could feel her mother's hands grip her shoulders tightly before steering her towards the front door of the house.
Maria Dalton pleaded with her daughter in a broken fashion as if realizing the gravity of her words, "Jean, my God. I'm sorry!"
Jean Granger said nothing as she lead her daughter out of her mother's home and towards their car down the street, where Charles Granger had been parking. Hermione had never experienced a more tense silence with her mother nor an alarming event with her grandparents. What in the bloody hell is going on! Damnit! Damn you, Ronald. Now my language is corrupted with you- wait, this is not the time! Hermione, focus!
"Mum, what just happened? I don't understand!" exclaimed Hermione, maneuvering herself from her mother's grasp and standing steadily on the walkway. Behind her mother, Charles Granger, Hermione's father caught up to them and stood beside her mother, his face questioning.
"What?" he asked, looking between them both confused, "What's happened?"
Jean looked at her very grown daughter. Hermione's shimmering eyes were honest in their confusion, at a loss to what her mother's words truly meant. It could be simply taken as a fact that there were no traits of herself in Hermione that outwardly shown, a simple matter of character. Yet Hermione was too quick witted for that simple explanation. No, today held a secret that involved her family and a daughter she swore to love and protect.
"Hermione," she said softly, her tone fierce yet loving, "I want you to forget what was said today and put it into the back of your mind."
"But Mum-"
"No, Hermione," said Jean firmly, her sea-blue eyes searching into Hermione's, begging a silent plea, "If you trust and love me as your mother, I beg you to never speak or think of it again. Trust in me, please."
Hermione gazed into her mother's tearing eyes and nodded gravely. Although impassioned with learning her mother's secret, Hermione could not bring herself to break her mother's heart. Her father remained silent and tense throughout their conversation, but Hermione could tell he knew something, perhaps everything.
It was never spoken of again.
Malfoy Manor after the raid on Hogwarts and the death of Albus Dumbledore …
Heavily breathing as he desperately gasped for air, Draco Malfoy could not find any other meaning for pain besides what he felt – the Cruciatus Curse changed its form of pain according to the person's tolerance and self-triggers. All he felt was slices and stabs at every part of his body from the inside, as if there were razors to his veins. He could not breath in the few seconds of reprieve from the curse and he felt every open wound within him still. It was pure madness and like the coward in him that could not kill Dumbledore, he silently begged for death.
"A merciful Death Eater, indeed!" snarled the Dark Lord, his rage spilling to waves across his followers as his most trusted, Severus Snape, tortured the son of Lucius Malfoy, "I hope you are prepared to die, Draco Malfoy, for your failure to complete your task. You are the son of your father and shall take all punishments for you and your family's insolence!"
Draco, who was withering and writhing on the floor before his parents, looked briefly into their eyes and pleaded for help. Narcissa Malfoy could not bear it and moved to take him, to shield him from this agony. Lucius held her tightly, however, and she was unable to do anything as her only son was tortured to near death before her eyes. She sobbed and sobbed as every curse struck his already battered form and he spat blood on the floor.
Draco, his body shaking as he vomited blood on the antique wooded floor of his own home, stared at the swirling pool of blood, noticed its crimson color, and thought of only one thing. In his third year, he had seen Granger prick her finger on a knife blade in double Potions. He didn't know why he paid such close attention, but watched as she swiftly put the bleeding cut into her mouth to suck the blood. She healed it with her wand and went to chop her ingredients. He remembered it was the same crimson color. He spat more of the copper-tasting vital fluid from his mouth and succumbed to a heap in from of the entire room.
Granger… we bleed the same blood.
His last thoughts before the darkness came over him and he thought nothing more.